Time and the Art of Living (Paperback)

~ Robert Grudin English Professor (Author) "1.1 IN A RAILROAD CAR AT NIGHTFALL, WHEN the natural light outside has diminished until it is even with the artificial light inside, the passenger..." (more)
Key Phrases: future selves, Carmel Valley, Decade Primedi

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Time and the Art of Living" is a philosophical essay about the relationship between two facts: that we each "strut and fret upon the stage" for a terrifyingly short slice of objective time, and that subjective time, our experience of temporality, is deeply informed by our chosen activities and our character.

Robert Grudin thinks that our subjective sense of time is largely determined by the degree and quality of attention we pay to our memories and our sense of the future. (It is a mark of the unhappy that they are trapped in the present without a larger sense of connection to the enduring self.) And he argues persuasively that the successful and the fulfilled become so because of the control they exercise over this subjective temporal embodiment. At its best, Time and the Art of Living is a profound book with lyrically beautiful prose. --Richard Farr

Review

"A book to savor, treasure, linger over: the rare and amazing spectacle of man thinking, of mind at work." -- Edward Abbey

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (September 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395898315
• ISBN-13: 978-0395898314
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #664,866 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book to accompany your life, December 30, 2001

By	John Parman (Berkeley, California USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Robert Grudin's "Time and the Art of Living" is about how we exist in time, and the role time plays in our lives, for better if we make productive use of it, or for worse if we ignore it. Not a self-help book, it is nonetheless a book that I come back to every several years, both for its accessible erudition and for its suggestions for giving shape to your life in time. Highly recommended.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable observations about humans and time., October 28, 1995

By A Customer

This review is from: Time and the Art of Living (Paperback)

360 very brief interconnected observations about aspects of how humans experience, distort, learn from, and ignore the flow of time. Rich in science, philosophy, and ideas that can be helpful in your life and your thinking. Deft and accessible, to be meditated upon or dipped into at random

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What to do in Time, April 1, 2001

By	"arlodriver" (Dearborn, MI) - See all my reviews

I would like to take a slightly different tact in reviewing this title, and that is to describe the pertinent circumstances in which I re-read it. I came back to Grudin's beautiful little volume after finally making my way through Heidegger's "Being and Time". I struggled through the weightier tome, and believe that I mined several nuggets of wisdom from it, although I think for the most part the battle was not always worth the rewards. I may be an immature reader of Heidegger, but it's hard to justify the complete murder of prose and order even in the attempt to establish new (or perhaps just unpopular) views. Heidegger's ideas on space and time however whetted my appetite for further explorations (especially since he seemed to leave so many paths untread). "Time and the Art of Living" is not a dense philosophical treatise, but it manages to be profound for both it's poetic style, and refreshing observations. Where Being and Time remains unsatisfying in clarity for the philosopher, and partial and vague for the existential thinker, Time and Art is direct and compelling enough to change a life. It's mission is not the same, but it is all the more succesful for realizing what needs to be said about the time in our lives. Grudin celebrates clear goals and vision as our anchor in the time of the present. Such clarity and humanism when contrasted with many other explorations shines forth brightly.